1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a display device in which a screen of displaying means for displaying a character string is scrolled and the character string is displayed in a selected one of a plurality of languages.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have conventionally been provided household sewing machines including a display section on the front of a main body of the machine. The display section is disposed to be longer horizontally than vertically. The display section displays, in the form of characters or figures, information about the sewing, for example, forms of stitches or a type of presser foot suitable for the sewing operation. A small number of characters can be displayed on the horizontally elongated display section when a character string is displayed thereon. That is, since the character string cannot sometimes be displayed at once on one screen of the display section, the screen is scrolled in a predetermined direction so that all the characters of the character string are viewed.
The character string is displayed on the display section in a language a user of the sewing machine uses. The prior art has provided sewing machines in which the language of the character string can be switched from one to another so that the sewing machines are used by users of various languages.
On one hand, the English, French or German alphabet is composed of characters with relatively simple configurations. Accordingly, the character sizes can be reduced so that the character string is displayed in two or more lines on the display section. On the other hand, Chinese characters used in the Japanese and Chinese languages have relatively complicated configurations. Accordingly, the Chinese characters cannot be recognized when reduced in their sizes. As a result, since the sizes of the Chinese characters need to be increased so as to be clearly recognized, the Chinese characters are displayed in one line on the display section.
In a case where the character string is displayed on two or more lines on the display section, the character string can easily be read when the screen is vertically scrolled. In a case where the character string is displayed on a single line, the character string can easily be read when the screen is horizontally scrolled. Thus, the character string displayed on the screen of the display section is sometimes read with difficulty when the screen is scrolled in one direction in the above two cases. This poses a problem.